


Two Februaries

by pauraque



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, HP: Epilogue Compliant, Post-Series, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-15
Updated: 2012-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-31 05:04:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second time Harry and Cho sit down together on Valentine's Day is twenty-five years after the first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Februaries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rozarka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rozarka/gifts).



> A Valentine's Day gift for the lovely Rozarka. <3

The rain is starting again, cold drops falling onto the back of Harry's neck, and spattering on his glasses. That's why he ducks under the awning of this café, instead of just walking past. That's why he sees her sitting at an outdoor table beneath that awning, turned round in her chair and grinning at the twin black-haired girls who are playing in a puddle by the kerb, holding an umbrella that's too big for them.

"She's getting my socks wet, Mum!"

"Well, that's what happens when you splash about, isn't it?" Cho turns round, and when she sees him, her smile shifts to wide-eyed surprise. "Oh! Harry, is it you?"

"Last time I checked," he says, feeling a smile creep across his face. She gets up from the metal chair and comes round — a little breathless laugh and hesitation before they briefly hug.

"What are you doing in— in London?" she asks.

Harry thinks she must have narrowly avoided saying _Muggle London_. "Visiting my cousin," he says, wiping his glasses off on his shirt. "I thought I'd go for a walk, of course it didn't occur to me..." He trails off, jerking his head at the rain now pattering evenly onto the footpath — rain he can't charm away, here.

"I didn't know you were close with your family."

"I'm not," he admits. "But, you know..." He shrugs a little; she smiles, nods. "And you, what are you up to?"

"Oh, just bringing the girls back from their dad's house." She glances over; Harry follows her gaze. The twins are now twirling the umbrella between their hands and watching the water spin off, giggling. "I thought I'd stop for a coffee and let them play, waste a little time."

He nods. There's an awkward pause as they stand there, Harry finding he hasn't any idea what to say. When he meets schoolmates like this, it's always hard to register how much older they've grown — how much older _he's_ grown. Yet Cho looks so much the same. Just with a grown-up blouse and trousers, and a slightly deeper line to her smile.

"Well, why don't you sit with me a bit?" Cho says at last. "If it doesn't let up, we'll walk you back under our umbrella. Do you want to order something?"

"Oh, no, I'll be all right," he says as they sit down.

"It's been ages since we talked, hasn't it?" Cho says, warming her hands around her coffee cup. "I think the last time was— well—" She breaks off, realising.

She doesn't have to say it. Harry knows when he saw Cho last. At the funeral.

"It's all right," he says, a bit stiffly. He runs his hand idly along the edge of the table, his eye catching the gold band on his ring finger. "It's been a long time."

Cho is looking into her coffee, a little red-faced. Harry breaks the silence before it has a chance to build, saying, "So, you're still working at...?"

"Oh, no. Well, sort of. I still do some editing on the side, but I'm... well, I've been writing." She scrunches up her shoulders, looking sheepish.

Harry finds himself surprised. "Have you? Anything I'd know? Er, I'll bet people ask that stupid question all the time," he adds.

She breathes a laugh, shaking her head. "Just some short stories, nothing really..." A dismissive wave of her hand.

"I'd like to read them," Harry says, finding that he means it. "I had no idea you wrote."

"I always have, just for myself. Things about people I knew, and... things that've happened over the years." She looks at him keenly, as though willing him to understand.

He nods soberly. "Yeah."

She goes on, encouraged. "And, well, I realised things that've already happened might seem boring to me, but they're new to other people, aren't they?" She chuckles a little, tucking her hair back behind her ear the same way she used to do when she was fourteen.

Harry is smiling. "Yeah, I could see that."

"Mum, look what I can do!"

They both turn to see. One of the twins is balancing the umbrella on her palm while the other cheers her on, letting the rain fall onto her face.

"Oh, Yanmei, you'll be soaked!" Cho exclaims in exasperation, and turns back to Harry, shaking her head. "Does it ever get easier?"

"Never. How old are they now?"

Her mouth curves into a smile of tentative pride. "Ten next month." 

"Are they — I mean, do you know yet where they'll go to school?"

It's a moment before Cho answers, biting her lip. "I'm sure they'll have a place," she says, glancing round and lowering her voice. "But it's hard to think of it... I've been out of that world for so long."

Harry leans in to hear her better over the clink of dishes around them, and the whisper of rain. "Do they know?"

"Yes. But sometimes, I just think..." She shakes her head. "I'm probably over-protective. Yours are all in school now, aren't they?"

"Yeah, my youngest is in second year."

"And they all like it?"

The faces of Harry's children flit before his mind's eye — frustrated, grieving, joyful. That's life. His family's life. "Haven't complained," he says simply.

Cho is gazing out at the street, where cars breathe heavy sighs as they pass slowly through the wet.

"I liked it too," she says, "at first."

Before Harry can answer, a flower-seller intrudes, carrying roses beneath his umbrella.

"Rose for the lady, sir?" he asks Harry absently.

"Oh, I—" Harry flusters. "No, she's not— I mean, we're just friends."

"I'll take one," Cho says, taking some Muggle money from her purse. "Thank you."

She drops the red rose into her water glass on the table as the flower-seller goes on his way. "It is Valentine's Day, after all," she says with a wry, wistful smile that Harry can't help returning.

"I like this Valentine's Day date a bit better than our last one," he confides.

She laughs. "A _lot_ better, I should think."

"Mum, the rain's stopping!" one of the girls says, and she's right, the drops are sprinkling to a halt, water now dripping only from the edge of the awning.

"We should get home before they both catch cold," Cho says, taking her coat from the back of the chair and standing up.

Harry gets up too. "We really should get together again," he says. "I mean, not— You know what I mean," he adds, his face going warm.

Cho smiles, shrugging her coat on. "Yeah. Do you ever do e-mail? Or is that a stupid question?"

"I... suppose I could learn," Harry says, turning up his palms.

"Or I could dust off the Floo Powder," Cho offers with a soft laugh, taking out paper and pen. "Here's my address, phone, and e-mail. One of those should do you." He takes it from her, and they go round the railing onto the footpath. "We're going this way," Cho says, pointing down the hill. "Are you—?"

"Other way," Harry says. "But I've got your— your stuff," he says, feeling stupid as he holds up the paper.

"Good," she says, smiling as she rounds up the children. "All right, time to get going!"

"Can we play the Wii 2 when we get home, Mum?"

"Before you play anything you're both having hot baths, I think. Look at you!"

"But Mum—!"

"It was good to see you, Harry!" she calls over her shoulder.

"See you soon," he answers, waving with the paper still in his hand. He stands there looking down at her angular handwriting for a moment, after she and the girls disappear round the corner. The grey clouds are thinning, and the wet pavement glitters in the weak sunlight.

Before Harry walks away, he leans over the railing and picks up the red rose from the water glass, and carries it with him as he heads back up the hill.

**Author's Note:**

> Some inspiration was drawn from the Jonathan Coulton song [Today With Your Wife](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz0UsQKwJ4Y).


End file.
